Gender equality: Unleashing the real wealth of nations

Last week, we launched the Women, Business, and the Law report, which found that despite the considerable progress that many countries have made in improving women’s legal rights over the last decade, women are still only accorded 75 percent of the legal rights that men, on average, are given. As a result, they are less able to get jobs, start businesses and make economic decisions, with economic consequences that reverberate beyond their families and communities.

Gender equality requires not just more equitable laws and regulations, but also safe and inclusive education and health services, facilities, and social norms—so that women can be empowered to make the necessary choices for themselves and their families. That sort of access and empowerment is deeply personal: I grew up in New Zealand in the 1960s, just as women were beginning to seek employment outside the home. At the time, my parents encouraged me to work in fields considered suitable for women, rather than to continue my education, and while they would have never expected that I would one day have the privilege to work in positions of leadership at various ministries of the New Zealand government and become a Vice President at the World Bank—I had the tools to be empowered along the way. And my journey became possible because in addition to agency and voice, I was given safe and inclusive access to health, education, and the job market—all of which were critical to my success. In too many countries, though, safe and inclusive access to these opportunities are out of reach: Education, for example, may be available, but access is often unsafe or not inclusive because roads to secondary school are dangerous for young girls. Women may also have difficulty accessing safe and inclusive health services, such as in South Sudan, one of the most dangerous places for women to give birth, where 86 percent of deliveries occur at home and nearly 10 percent of children do not survive to age 5.